Knee pain is one of the most common symptoms with which patients turn to orthopedists and other specialists.Many people completely ignore the appearance of discomfort, considering it age-related and almost natural.However, pain in the knee joint has many causes, as it has a complex structure and is affected by many external and internal harmful factors.Some diseases are serious and require urgent treatment.
Who is more likely to injure their knee joints?
The knees are made up of several bones connected by muscles, ligaments and tendons.There are also 5 joint bursae - cavities surrounded by membranes that protect the joint.Between the joints of the bones there are interarticular cartilages - menisci, which help the knee to move freely.Disruption of a part of the knee joint leads to the appearance of unpleasant symptoms.
Pain in the knee joint occurs especially often in people with flat feet.This is a pathology of the foot that interferes with the shock-absorbing ability of the limbs.With age, the increased load on the joints causes destruction and the development of inflammatory phenomena - a pain syndrome appears.Different deformities of the foot and lower leg have similar consequences.
There are several factors that make knee pain more common:
- Overweight;
- Passive lifestyle;
- Heavy sports load;
- Diabetes mellitus;
- Vascular diseases;
- old age;
- Knee surgeries and injuries;
- Work with increased load on the legs.
The causes and treatment of knee pain vary widely, as does the severity of the sensation.If the knee hurts a lot, it can be caused by an injury or an advanced stage of arthrosis, a serious inflammatory process.Sometimes the symptom becomes permanent, even at rest, accompanied by swelling, redness and cracking.All these signs should alert a person and they should consult a doctor.
Pain due to knee bruises
Among the traumatic causes of joint dysfunction, contusions are the most common.Why does my knee hurt if the symptoms were preceded by only a minor bruise?Even a slight injury is accompanied by bleeding and swelling of the soft periarticular tissues.As a result, the nerve roots suffer and pain occurs.
In more severe cases, the knee pain intensifies when bending and extending the leg, and the person stops moving because of the sharp sensations experienced in the joint.You can feel the swelling of the leg by palpation;hot to the touch.How to treat such an injury?You need to contact a traumatologist, take an X-ray, follow all recommendations and rest your leg.
Often, the cause of pain in the knee joint after a banal bruise is traumatic hemarthrosis.This is the spilling of blood into the joint cavity, causing edema and swelling of the joint membranes.As a result, the joint fills with blood and inflammation begins.Without proper treatment, an injury can lead to the development of chronic arthrosis even at a young age.
Other types of knee injuries
If your leg hurts in the knee, and an injury has contributed to these sensations, the reasons lie in various damages to the components of the joint.Here are the main ones:
- Meniscopathy.It means flattening or tearing of the meniscus.Injuries are particularly common among professional athletes, extreme athletes, and household injuries.A person feels that the knee is sharply painful, the nature of the sensations is prickly, dagger-like, the joint loses mobility for a while.
- Damage to the taste buds.Ligament tears (sprains) occur when the leg is twisted, after jumping, or when the limb is stretched in an unnatural position.Sharp pain occurs, the leg swells, the position of the joint changes, it becomes loose.
- Cruciate ligament tear.Because these ligaments are located within the joint, injury often leads to bleeding into the knee socket.Only one puncture helps to pump out the blood and make an accurate diagnosis.
Aching pain in the knee joint sometimes accompanies chronic displacement of the patella.Without treatment of the acute injury, in many patients the dislocation becomes chronic and causes regular relapse.In children, this pathology causes an X-shaped curvature of the leg and leads to severe impairment of its function.Sometimes the pathology affects the knees of both legs.
Inflammatory diseases of the knee
Conventional treatment for knee pain is often ineffective.In this case, it may not affect the joint itself, but the surrounding soft tissue.Thus, tendinitis or tendinitis can be triggered by increased load on the limb, past leg injuries, allergies, reactions to medications, etc.With this disease, the knee joint usually hurts during the day or at night;the pain subsides at night.In the acute stage, the mobility of the joints is severely limited, the syndrome is long-lasting and cannot be treated with ointments and creams.Sharp sensations can also be observed when palpating the lateral part of the knee.
If your knee hurts regularly, the symptom worsens after hypothermia, the cause may be synovitis - inflammation of the joint membranes.Inflammatory discharge appears inside the joint, causing cracking and pain.The causes of the pathology are different:
- Autoimmune diseases;
- Metabolic diseases;
- Past traumas;
- Arthrosis.
Another "popular" disease that causes knee pain is bursitis.It occurs when the bursa (joint capsule) becomes inflamed.In addition to the pain, redness, swelling and increased sensitivity of the patella area can be observed.If you do not clarify in time how to treat bursitis, it almost always becomes chronic.
Neoplasms in the area of the knee joint
Malignancies at this location are rare;The pain syndrome is characteristic of them only at a very late stage.More often, aching pain in the knee joint is characteristic of benign formations:
- Baker's cyst.This tumor is located below the knee, on the back surface.The skin above the cyst looks normal, not inflamed;when bending, there may be no swelling at all.In a standing position, a well-defined, soft, flexible formation appears at the site of the cyst.Appears after unilateral knee injury or cartilage damage.Very often, the cyst accompanies chronic arthritis, arthrosis, rheumatoid arthritis.Large cysts not only cause knee pain, but also severely restrict the mobility of the limbs.Other symptoms include cold skin, pallor, goosebumps, and numbness due to compression of blood vessels and nerves.
- Meniscus cyst.It appears in the outer or inner meniscus when there is a cavity with fluid inside the cartilage.In this case, the knee hurts after a heavy load or at the end of the day.Large cysts can be seen on the side of the joint, small ones can only be seen by ultrasound or X-ray.
A rare pathology is Hoffa's disease - a transformation of the adipose tissue of the joint, which becomes fibrous and causes joint dysfunction.Against the background of this pathology, arthrosis often develops, which causes pain in the knee joint.Causes: hormonal imbalance, menopause in women.
Infectious joint pathologies
Against the background of the infection, the knee joint hurts sharply, sharply, rest does not alleviate the condition.Even urogenital and intestinal infections can cause complications in the musculoskeletal system, leading to reactive arthritis.Bacteria (salmonella, chlamydia, gonococci and others) enter the cavity of the bone joint with the bloodstream, settle on the tissues and cause inflammation.Tendons also usually become inflamed, causing the knee to swell and feel hot to the touch.
Tuberculosis is a serious disease.Mycobacterium tuberculosis multiplies in bone tissue, causing bone melting and death of cartilage and soft tissue.Without emergency care, the knee joints are damaged and collapse, and the process covers larger and larger areas.As a result, fistulas appear - purulent cavities that can spill out and harm the whole body.
Osteomyelitis of the bone is an acute, urgent disease.What to do if the knee hurts and the process is accompanied by weakness, muscle pain and a fever of up to 40 degrees?If the pain in the knee is dull, exploding, and the tissues themselves are swollen, red and blue, urgently call an ambulance and go to emergency surgery.Otherwise, you may lose your footing or die.
Knee pain - causes of a degenerative nature
After the age of 50, many people have knee pain.The prerequisites are aging of the body, wear and tear of joint devices and the development of the most common pathology - osteoarthritis (gonarthrosis).This leads to thinning and destruction of the cartilage, changing the shape of the bone heads.Most often, in the early stages of the pathology, the knee hurts on one side;after a few years, the lesion becomes bilateral.The stiffness in my legs bothers me in the morning, but it soon goes away.Increased sensations are possible after physical work, intense sports or a long walk.
In advanced stages, joint tissues collapse and osteophytes grow on the sides of the joint space.These are spikes made of bone tissue, which in severe cases break off and cause excruciating pain.There are several other degenerative pathologies whose symptoms are similar to gonarthrosis:
- Osteochondropathy.Affects the articular surface of the bone, related to injuries and sports.It can develop in teenagers for no apparent reason.
- Arthritis.It can cause rheumatic, psoriatic, gouty, chronic inflammation and joint damage.
- Chondromatosis.The etiology is unclear.The disease causes the appearance of nodules on the joint membranes, which limit the movement of the knee and cause pain.
Menopausal women often have knee pain due to osteoporosis - the bones become thinner, which increases their fragility.The disease is accompanied by leg cramps, spinal pain and periodic fractures.
Other causes of knee pain
If the knee hurts, the etiology of the feeling also lies in damage to the peripheral nervous system.Thus, neuropathy of the sciatic nerve against the background of damage to the lumbar vertebrae leads to a number of symptoms.The person's knees hurt, the area around the hips hurts, the joints of the limbs weaken, and the sensitivity of the skin is damaged.Leg reflexes also change.
Sometimes the entire knee joint hurts due to vascular disorders.Only in adolescence, do not worry too much - due to the rapid growth of the body, the vessels do not have time to supply the bones with blood.With advancing age, the condition of the joint normalizes - usually by the age of 18-20, the pain disappears completely.
In old age, the knee also often hurts with arteriosclerosis, what can be done in this case?Without normalizing fat metabolism, plaque will continue to build up in the arteries.The blood vessels become blocked and stop all supply to the joint.Arthrosis develops in it, the pain becomes chronic.Unpleasant sensations in the knee area can also be caused by varicose veins, thrombophlebitis and vein thrombosis.
How to make a diagnosis?
People have knee pain quite often;the way to treat the condition can only be determined after an examination.Both sharp and nagging pain in the knee are characteristic of many pathologies, some of them are very dangerous.For diagnosis, you should contact a surgeon, orthopedist, neurologist, rheumatologist or traumatologist.He conducts a survey, finds out the exact symptoms of the disease and identifies the accompanying signs.In addition, during the first appointment, the doctor will perform a series of tests and a physical examination to clarify the nature of the problem.
What to do if the knee hurts, what instrumental methods help to identify the causes?They usually require:
- Ultrasound;
- MRI;
- CT;
- Radiography.
The choice of the exact technique should be left to the doctor.Thus, ultrasound does a good job of reflecting changes due to arthrosis and meniscus damage.X-rays perfectly show bone deformations and the presence of osteophytes.MRI and CT provide comprehensive information;they are indispensable in case of complex diseases.In addition, the doctor prescribes blood tests to rule out inflammation and rheumatism, and if necessary, a joint biopsy is performed.In case of osteoporosis, densitometry is needed - it shows the patient's bone density.
Treatment of knee pain
If the pathology is of a traumatic nature, the treatment is carried out by traumatologists, sometimes in a hospital.Light bruising will disappear on its own within a few days;to dissolve the hematoma quickly, it is advisable to apply absorbent ointments to the knee.If pain occurs, ointments containing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory components should be rubbed in.
How do we treat knee pain due to inflammatory changes?In the acute stage of bursitis, synovitis, arthritis, the affected leg requires rest;An ice pack can be applied for 15 minutes during the first 3 days.Severe pain is relieved by injections of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and injection of anesthetics directly into the joint.After the pain subsides, physiotherapy and exercise therapy are prescribed to prevent chronic inflammation of the joint.
If a person has pain in the knee due to gonarthrosis, what should he do in this case?The main drugs of treatment are chondroprotectors and hyaluronic acid injections.The purpose of these drugs is to restore the nutrition of the articular cartilage, as a result of which the deterioration of the articular cartilage stops.In addition, rehabilitation of the knee requires the following:
- Vascular drugs;
- Physiotherapy;
- Gymnastics;
- Massage;
- Vitamin complexes.
Infectious diseases of the joints indicate the introduction of antibiotics into the joint cavities or taking drugs orally.In some cases, surgery is required to remove the tissue affected by the pus.Advanced forms of arthrosis associated with the proliferation of osteophytes are also treated with surgical intervention.Sometimes only replacing the joint with a prosthesis allows a person to maintain the ability to walk normally.